Weibo Proposes $500M IPO; Sina Shares Jump 8.6%

March 18th, 12:25 am

|

Weibo late Friday night filed a proposed a $500 million initial public offering. Shares of Sina Corp (NASDAQ: SINA), which owns a 78 percent stake in Weibo, are up a massive 8.6 percent Monday afternoon.

Weibo is a Chinese version of Twitter, but the company describes itself as “a new online experience in China by combining the means of real-time public self-expression with a powerful platform for social interaction, as well as content aggregation and distribution.”

In the prospectus, Weibo discloses some details on its user base. In December 2013, the site had 61.4 million daily average users, a 36 percent increase year-over-year, and a 143 percent increase from December 2011.

George Askew, analyst at Stifel, values Weibo at $4.6 billion, “based on a per daily active user valuation.”

According to Askew, Alibaba “plans to exercise option for 30% ownership on IPO.”

Askew has a Buy rating and $100 price target on shares of Sina. The analyst’s price target is based on a “sum-of-the-parts valuation.”